Connect with the console

The console is a screen and keyboard attached directly to your server, in your browser. It doesn’t go over the network to your server, so it keeps working when SSH doesn’t.

Use it when:

• SSH is refusing connections, or you’ve locked yourself out with a firewall rule
• you’re installing an operating system from an ISO and need to answer the installer
• the server won’t finish booting and you need to see why
• you need to reach a recovery shell or edit the bootloader

Open it

1. Go to Servers and open the server.
2. Find the Console card and open the console.

A window opens showing whatever is on the server’s screen right now. If the server is off, it will be blank — start it from the power controls in the page header first.

Note

The console captures your keystrokes while focused, including shortcuts your browser would normally take. Click outside it, or close it, to get them back.

Working in it

Log in with the credentials from the Access card on the same page.

Screen size is set by the server, not the browser. A server sitting at a text console will look small in a large window; that’s normal.

The toolbar

Some key combinations can’t be typed into a console, because your own computer acts on them first. The toolbar sends them to the server instead.

Ctrl+Alt+Del — your operating system intercepts this before the browser ever sees it, so the button is the only way to deliver it. On Windows it brings up the security screen; on most Linux systems it triggers a reboot.

Send keys — the combinations a browser or desktop would otherwise swallow:

• Ctrl+Alt+F1 … F6 switch virtual terminals on Linux. F1 is usually the graphical session and F2 a text login, which is how you get a shell when the desktop won’t draw.
• Esc opens the boot menu if you press it while the server is starting.
• Alt+F4, Alt+Tab, Tab, Delete and the Windows key for graphical guests.

Paste text — typed in as keystrokes rather than placed on the guest’s clipboard, so it works on a plain text console with no clipboard at all. Useful for an SSH key or a long command you’d rather not retype. Each new line is sent as Enter, so a multi-line block runs line by line — paste a script with care, and prefer pasting it into an editor over running it straight into a shell.

Fullscreen for a server whose screen is bigger than the window.

Reconnect if the session drops. It requests a fresh session; the old one is short-lived by design and can’t be resumed.

If the screen is black

A black console is not necessarily a broken console.

• The server is off. Check the status on the server page and start it.
• The screen is asleep. Press a key — often Enter — to wake it.
• It’s still booting. Wait, then reload the console.
• The OS boots to a graphical target it can’t draw. You’ll usually still get a text console on another virtual terminal — use Send keys → Ctrl+Alt+F2. Typing that combination yourself won’t work; your own desktop takes it first.

If the console opens but nothing responds at all, and the server shows as running, take a look at the firewall activity — a running server with a full disk or a kernel panic will often show as up while being unusable. The console is where you see that.

Getting back to SSH

Once you’re in, the usual causes of a locked-out server are quick to check.

systemctl status ssh      # Debian and Ubuntu
systemctl status sshd     # RHEL, Rocky, Oracle Linux
ss -tlnp | grep :22       # is anything actually listening?
df -h                     # a full disk stops sshd accepting logins

If SSH is healthy on the server, the problem is in front of it — see Route traffic to your server.

Forgotten root password

If you have the guest agent installed, use Reset password on the server’s Access card — it’s much easier.

Without the agent, that action isn’t available and you need your OS’s own recovery route from the console: on most Linux distributions, interrupt the bootloader, append init=/bin/bash to the kernel line, boot, remount the root filesystem read-write, and run passwd. The exact keys differ per distribution, so check its documentation.

Reboot the server from the page header and use Send keys → Esc as it starts to reach the boot menu — the timing is tight, so it’s normal to need a couple of attempts.